# A good set of generic questions...

Eric Mercer (mercer@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu)
Mon, 20 May 1996 19:42:00 PDT

- Messages sorted by:[ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]

    >  If you want to do something like this, why not use Pueblo?  The new
    >version doesn't give you frame, it gives you actual separate windows, Allows
    >for sound and pictures inline, does the scrolling you wish Netscape would
    >do, and is basically a MUD client, that supports the use of HTML tags, with
    >a few of its own.  The newer version, pueblo 1.09 beta (waiting for 2.0
    >coming soon.) Allows for just about everything I could have thought of (so
    >far ;)) for adding easy, and quick sound and graphics to a MOO.  Take a look
    >at that one.
    >
    >  WWW Moo has always been a bit laggy, which pueblo doesn't suffer from,
    >BTW.  I wouldn't even have considered using netscape as a client, but pueblo
    >fits the bill well.

      Actually, this is sort of a funny thing.  Two of the earliest webbed MOOs
    were the Sprawl and MOOtiny.  Both are on pretty laggy lines when connecting
    from the U.S. (Sprawl server in Hawaii and MOOtiny in Britain) so webbed
    MOOs got a reputation as being laggy.  They aren't.  Also, the Sprawl used
    to be very populated, and having 100 connected users will lag your MOO more
    than any web system.  Then again, some implementations have more potential
    for lag if your MOO ever gets a few hundred web hits at once.
    Implementations where every web transaction creates a new MOO object are
    probably most vulnerable to this, since you're talking about a lot of server
    overhead.
      Although I like some things about the Pueblo implementation (by the
    company "Chaco"), and their "scrolling HTML" is kind of interesting, it has
    three problems that I see. One, the client requires you to connect through
    the Chaco server, which I view as a sneaky way for Chaco to set itself up as
    the gateway to MOOs that don't belong to it, and also as a serious security
    risk unless you don't mind the folks at Chaco having access to all your MOO
    communications (do all client communications go through their server
    first?).  Two, Unix and Mac users are left out in the cold because there is
    no Pueblo client version for them.
      Three, you become dependent on the folks at Chaco to continue supporting
    and upgrading their client.  We're talking about a company too small to put
    out Mac and Unix releases and if they go under then your fancy webbed MOO is
    suddenly a dinosaur.  They implement MOO-client communication through
    several very unusual "x-command" attributes embedded into the HTML tags, and
    there's never going to be any support for those outside Chaco, as far as I
    can tell.  Web-MOO implementations that are browser independent, or at least
    support both Netscape Navigator and MS Internet Explorer (90% of the people
    out there use one or the other), are preferable because you then have
    several multi-million dollar companies developing your MOO's client for you.
    That's sort of nice.  Chaco has gone the route of discouraging compatibility
    by implementing a system that really can't be reconciled with anything but
    their own proprietary client.  I know retro is always sort of cool, but,
    well, how 70's of them.
                                         Eric  (EricM at BioMOO and Diversity
    University)
    P.S. Yes, I'm dissing the competition. But I trust y'all are smart enough to
    judge things based on their features in any case.  I look forward to hearing
    a slick rebuttal soon.  :)